Landmann floppy disks were offered as early as 2013

A bon vivant keeps the politics of Zurich in suspense. Roland Gisler (58), landlord of the Neugasshof environment in Zurich District 5, received highly confidential information from the Ministry of Justice. They had been clumsily removed for years – by the company of Gisler’s brother A.*

Since then, all kinds of Gisler stories have been circulating the city: Gisler privately harasses high-ranking members of the security apparatus, Gisler appears in court with insulting posters against unwanted lawyers, Gisler distributes nasty leaflets on the street to his opponents, Gisler positions himself in front of the courthouse with the telephoto lens. In November, the Supreme Court sentenced him – not yet definitively – to four years in prison on drug trafficking and other charges.

One of the more entertaining legends concerns Gisler’s youth: he had completed an apprenticeship as a machine mechanic at the Bührle industrial group; instead of a conventional thesis, he made a working submachine gun. The weapon is said to be in the Zurich crime museum today.

who knew what

The man who brought the scandal to light with a parliamentary inquiry is a no less colorful personality: Valentin Landmann (72), SVP councilor and criminal lawyer. He’s Gisler’s attorney on the drug case, which is how he got the missing hard drives. Landmann is appalled at the size of the sensitive collection. Between 2000 and 2014, thousands and thousands of data ended up somewhere in the environment: “It concerns, among other things, secret investigations by the public prosecutor’s office and meetings between the then director of justice and the senior public prosecutor’s office,” says Landmann. Gisler’s lawyer also supports the SVP’s demand for a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (PUK): “The matter must be clarified a fund.”

It is not entirely clear who knew what and when. The shot justice director Jacqueline Fehr (59), who has only been in office since 2015, claims to have known about the affair for two years, but kept it a secret from the public until a few days ago. Parliament’s GPK was informed in 2021. Landmann, on the other hand, states that he has only known about it for about a year.

This is in contrast to a coupon dated October 18, 2013, which has been circulating for some time and is available for SonntagsBlick. The letterhead from Landmann’s law firm reads: “The Landmann Law Firm confirms that Mr. JW has received two hard drives.” JW* is the business partner of Roland Gisler’s brother, who at the time would destroy the data of the authorities.

So Landmann has known for nine years? And is he himself in possession of such data carriers? When asked, the lawyer says that he is bound by the lawyer-client privilege – and at the same time emphasizes: “I have and did not have such discs with me.” He kept getting hints of the case. However, the real scope of the matter had only become clear to him in recent weeks.

A bad time

According to relatives of the lawyer, JW showed up at Landmann’s office and wanted to sell the two hard drives, which Landmann refused. The man ran off with the material. In any case, prosecutor Daniel Kloiber also answered questions about Landmann’s level of knowledge: on December 4, 2020, he personally asked his office if any of this data was still available.

What is certain is that the whole thing is far from over. Too many questions remain. Should a PUK ever get to work, the legislative body with the sharpest tools, even more could come to light.

It is an unfavorable time for SP politician Jacqueline Fehr, especially now that there are government elections in Zurich in February. And Fehr will also be aware that – apart from the healthcare sector – no other area of ​​public administration is more sensitive when it comes to protecting privacy.

In the meantime, Roland Gisler would have found mountains of additional information from the data sets.

* Names known